Arthur Frommer, who changed travel with his guidebooks, has died at 95

Arthur Frommer, who revolutionized travel with his 1957 guidebook Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, has died at 95, his daughter confirmed Monday.

He went on to write a series of Frommer’s guidebooks, which eventually became Frommers.com. He additionally was a writer, television and radio host and speaker.

Frommer died at home in the company of loved ones, his daughter Pauline wrote in a statement posted on Frommers.com.

“Throughout his remarkable life, Arthur Frommer democratized travel, showing average Americans how anyone can afford to travel widely and better understand the world,” she said.

She continued, “I am honored to carry on his work of sharing the world with you, which I proudly do with his team of extraordinary and dedicated travel journalists around the world. We will all miss him greatly.”

In a 2007 interview to recognize the 50th anniversary of the publication of Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, Frommer said the idea for his book started in the early 1950s when he was a GI stationed in post-World War II Germany. At the time, Europe was considered a destination for only the privileged, and the brave. Americans were told Europe was a war-torn continent that wasn’t safe to travel in, Frommer said.

“Every three-day pass, every leave, no matter how little money I had, I got on a train or I’d catch a free Air Force flight and I went somewhere,” Frommer said on the NPR radio program Day to Day. “And I just discovered that this was such a marvelous opportunity, so easily available to many people, and yet very badly misunderstood by most Americans, especially by my fellow GIs.”